NCJ Number
249634
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 43 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2016 Pages: 164-186
Date Published
February 2016
Length
23 pages
Annotation
Using a mixed-race sample of male and female drug-involved offenders who were released from prison in the early 1990s and re-interviewed in 2009 through 2011, this study represents perhaps the first attempt to determine the utility of the identity theory of desistance (ITD) in explaining desistance in a contemporary cohort of adult drug-involved offenders.
Abstract
Supporting the ITD, interview narratives revealed that the vast majority of offenders who successfully desisted from crime and substance misuse had first transformed their offender identity into a non-offender identity. Although partnership and employment did not appear to be significant turning points per se for the majority of respondents, rekindling relationships with extended family and finding living-wage employment did serve to solidify new prosocial identities once the transformation had occurred. (Publisher abstract modified)
Date Published: February 1, 2016